


Another 3AM

by partofthedisease



Category: Final Space (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bonding.. to the max-core, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Implied garycato, Late Night Conversations, Nightmares, So between e2 and e4?? yeah, Takes place sometime before Quinn's arrival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-20 22:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14270859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/partofthedisease/pseuds/partofthedisease
Summary: Gary is used to having nightmares. What he is not used to, however, is having someone to confide in afterwards.





	Another 3AM

_"4... 3... 2..."_

Gary jolts awake like a man being electrocuted. Alarms blare in his ears; his skin is damp with sweat and cold to the touch. Eyes wide and wild, he does a double take, panning his surroundings. His breathing steadies only once he catches sight of Mooncake, who stares at him, concerned, from the foot of his bed. Only then does he realize he's in his cell. 

"Good morning, Gary. It is exactly 3:38 AM."

His chest rises and falls in deep waves, and he gives his room a second once-over before flopping face down onto his pillow, groaning. Another 3AM wake up call, courtesy of his own damn brain. 

"How long was I out this time, HUE?" he asks tiredly, lifting himself into a hunched sitting position and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. Mooncake floats to his side, uttering a small, content "chookity" when Gary pets him absently. 

"You slept for approximately three consecutive hours," HUE says. "I must say, Gary, that this is the shortest amount of uninterrupted sleep you've had in a long time."

"Yeah?" He doesn't bother putting on his suit; it's a hassle to get on anyway. He treads lightly to the bathroom, linoleum floors of the ship ice cold against his feet, and squints through the darkness at his reflection in the mirror. 

"Yeah, indeed, Gary. Lately I have noticed irregularities in your sleep habits, including frequent periods of interval sleeping, and heightened anxiety prior to the REM stage," HUE continues. "It would appear to me that the stress you're under during the day has begun to affect you at night."

"Great observational skills there, HUE." His eyes, lightless and accentuated by dark circles, further confirm the AI's remarks. Sleeping has never been Gary's forte, but now, with the stress of helping Avocato reunite with his son, his nights have become filled with tossing and turning. And the restless, on-again-off-again sleep is the least of his problems. 

"Whelp." He stretches till he feels his joints pop and turns on his heel. "Looks like I'm up for good now."

"Gary," HUE's voice echoes after him as he crosses the room, "you still have roughly four hours until it is time for you to wake up. It would behoove you to take advantage of that time and-"

"Whoa, whoa, pause. _Behoove?"_ Gary chuckles. "That's a, a Double Jeopardy word right there, HUE. Color me impressed."

He stands in front of the door, waiting for it to slide open, but it doesn't budge- HUE has denied him access. Sighing, Gary adds, "look, HUE. I'd love to catch some more Z's, man, but going back to sleep after the dream I just had would be like inviting the demons right into my head, and... I don't think I can deal with that tonight."

A few moments of silence pass, save for the whirr and hum of the ship's mechanisms. Finally, the doors slide open, and Gary swears he can detect a tired sigh in HUE's voice as he says, "at least drink some water while you're up."

 

Glass in hand, Gary sits at one of the lounge tables and gazes lazily out the window. The ship hovers far above a small nebula, a whirling, shining array of light and color. He watches the stars blink in a way that seems to serve as some sort of archaic language. 

(Gary imagines there's not much for a star to talk about. _"How 'bout that Bang, huh?" "Oh, yeah. Pretty damn big, I say.")_

The stars don't have problems to worry over (except for the collapsing and exploding bit, but that comes millions of years later, anyway). Right now, Gary wants nothing more than to be a star, just a glint of light in the infinite abyss of space. 

A rustling noise snaps him from his thoughts. Gary sits up so abruptly his spine almost snaps, and he surveys the room through sleep hazed eyes. He can hear it more clearly now, a quiet clattering in the direction of the kitchenette. 

"KVN," he mutters under his breath as he makes his way across the ship, "if you're having an unbridled late-night affair with BETH in the kitchen again, I will personally set a course for the nearest black hole just so I can have the pleasure of dropkicking you into it."

Instead, he is greeted by Avocato _(you win this round, KVN)_ , who is head-first in the fridge, tail swishing as he pokes around. Gary chuckles inwardly at this. "Can't sleep, huh?" he asks loudly, causing the Ventrexian to bump his head on the middle shelf. He hisses in pain, whipping around to glare irritably at Gary. 

"I could say the same to you," he says, ears twitching. He pauses, looking Gary up and down. "Are humans always so eager to walk around... half- _naked_ like that?"

"Only the best of us," Gary counters, "and I asked you first." He takes a seat at the table. "What, didja wake up with, like, a hankering for a saucer of milk, or something?"

"If you really want to know, I was rooting around in your fridge for whiskey."

"Ah. Well, we _are_ on a prison ship. HUE doesn't exactly keep the place stocked with Jack Daniels or anything."

"I figured as much," Avocato says, smirking, "which I why I was gonna go rifling through your stuff afterwards to see if you had something stashed away somewhere." Gary laughs at this. "Oh, that wasn't a joke. I really was going to search through your things." 

Before Gary can react, Avocato grabs one of the chairs across from him and turns it around, straddling the seat as he adds, "alright, Cap, your turn. Why the hell are _you_ up so late?"

Well, this conversation was bound to happen eventually, and Gary attempting to lie his way out was just an inevitable factor. "Oh, I don't sleep," he says simply. "I evolved past the need for it long ago."

Avocato raises an eyebrow warily. "Is that so?"

"It's _so_ so," says Gary, smiling smugly. He leans back casually in his chair until the front legs hover above the floor. "Yep, when you're a hardened criminal like me, sleep is beneath you. There's _loads_ of better stuff to do than sleep, like, uh, a round of one-person Connect Four, or seeing how many times you can beat off in an hour before you-"

"Gary suffers from chronic nightmares, and thus his sleep schedule varies from night to night," HUE's voice deadpans over the PA system. 

Avocato blinks at this, and Gary scowls, slouching forward. The chair hits the floor with a loud clang of metal. "Way to ruin my well-masked façade, HUE," he grumbles. 

"You'll thank me later, Gary."

There's a lull of silence. Gary glares down at the floor, embarrassed. "To be fair," Avocato says at last, "you weren't exactly fooling me to begin with." When Gary looks up, Avocato is staring at him. He's smiling, but there is a crease in his brow that hints at worry.

"Yeah I... figured," Gary admits, wrapping an arm around his frame. Suddenly he wishes he'd put his suit on, because the room feels about 10 degrees chillier, "I figured."

"You wanna talk about it?"

For five years Gary has longed for someone to talk to, to confide in. His daily messages to Quinn only do so much; watching the repetitive, monotonous red light of the camera blink away listlessly only reminds him that he is still, in a sense, rambling to a machine and not a human being. So now that he's face to face with an actual, living person, and the question 'Do you want to talk?' hangs in the air, why in the _universe_ does he find it so hard to answer?

Before he can speak, he feels a warmth envelop his left hand. He glances down, sees Avocato's hand over his, and reflects briefly on how grateful he is that his metal arm can still feel sensations. 

They stare at each other for some time, as if trying to see who will break first. It's Avocato who gives in, retracting his hand and glancing away. "Hey," he says, and it's probably the softest he's ever spoken to Gary, "you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I know how hard it is to open up to others sometimes."

"No, it's..." Still stunned by the contact, Gary shakes his head and tries again. "Yeah, you're right, it is hard," he says slowly, "but that doesn't mean I don't wanna talk about it, because sweet _Lord,_ do I."

Avocato glances up, nodding patiently.

Inhaling deeply, Gary says at last, "So, you heard right, I have nightmares- _have_ had nightmares, for the past five years." He laughs bitterly under his breath. "You, uh, you'd think after all this time I would have gotten used to them by now, but, y'know. Apparently my brain didn't get the memo."

"Jeez." Avocato frowns. "What are they about?" he asks, then pauses. "If you don't mind my asking," he adds. "I know this is a touchy subject for you, and-"

"Up-bup-bup." Gary holds up a hand before he can finish. "Avocato, we clasped, did we not?" When Avocato only stares, eyebrow cocked in confusion, Gary drags a hand down his face. "Unbelieva- the _Clasp,_ Avocato," he repeats, gesturing vigorously between their hands. "The Clasp of Friends? The sacred bond on which we base our very actions and decisions?"

"Oh, right. _That_ clasp. You realize most people just call that a handshake-"

"When our hands met in that fiery blaze of glory and trust, it gave you official access to everything in the ol' _cabeza."_ Gary taps at his temple. "Anything you want to know- all the personal, unadulterated information tucked away in tissue-y confines of this brain- it's all yours, my friend."

Avocato grimaces, inching back in his seat. "It's an honor," he says, "but is there any chance you could have worded that differently?"

"None at all."

"Fair enough," says Avocato. "Continue?"

Gary's eyes wander to the window. The stars, too, seem to hold a collective breath waiting for his story. _Go on,_ they blink at him. _Go on, go on, go on._

"I dream about the day my dad died," he starts, "when he took off for the last time. Only in my dreams, I'm not a spectator. I'm in the passenger seat. And I can-" he clenches his fists and shakes his arms for emphasis- "I can feel the turbulence as we break through the stratosphere. My dad, I can tell he knows we're gonna die. He's got this smile, like he knows something I don't, but I do know. We're going to die. And he just squeezes my hand the entire time, telling me we're doing a great, heroic, noble thing." 

He can feel his face heating up, tears welling behind his eyes like a clogged storm drain. When he swallows, his throat sticks, tongue suddenly too big for his mouth. This is vulnerability, he realizes. He's showing more of himself to a man he met only days earlier than he has to Quinn for the past five years of his sentence, and damn it all if the irony is lost on him. 

"And we're not. We're-" he laughs despite himself, more of an exasperated breath than anything else- "we're _dying!_ That's not heroic; it doesn't take courage to die. If that were the case then freakin' everybody would be a hero." He trails off, shaking his head. "But he keeps on smiling at me as the ship starts heating up, a-and alarms start going off, and at some point he just- he vanishes. And right as the self destruct countdown is about to hit one, I wake up."

Avocato doesn't speak, just stares and nods quietly. Gary appreciates this kind of silence. It's different from the silence he gets when he records videos for Quinn, a brash, cacophonous nothing that bounces off walls and echoes his words back to him like a parrot, a silence that reminds him of how alone he truly is. Avocato's silence is different; Gary finds solemnity in his lack of words. 

"See," Gary continues, "I'd always wanted to be a hero. I mean, my dad worked for the quote-unquote "good guys" that always rambled on about how much they were doing to make the earth a better place, so of course I wanted to be a part of that. I was the Goodspeed boy, for crying out loud. I was practically a freakin' hero by default, but still, I could never live up to Dad's legacy." He wraps his arms around himself, drawing his knees up to his bare chest. He laughs bitterly. "The guy might not have been a clown, but he sure did have some big shoes to fill."

Avocato thinks for some time, that silence still as comforting as before. Finally he speaks: "I think you're a hero, if it's any consolation." 

The words catch Gary off-guard. "I'm- I'm sorry, have we met?" He laughs, sweeping his arm out in gesture. "I'm a freakin' _prisoner!"_ he says. "Weren't you there when I did the whole recap on my backstory with the cruisers and the Mexican restaurant and-"

Avocato raises his hands up. "Yeah, trust me, I remember," he quickly interrupts. "You fucked up pretty damn bad."

"A-plus on the consoling there, Avocato. You're doing a real bang up job."

_"But,"_ Avocato adds, "it was a mistake. We've all done things we're not proud of." His eyes dart to the floor, a flicker of hurt crossing his face as he murmurs, "All of us." He looks up, gaze hardening. "What matters is that you make yourself the person you want to be, and not let the past define you in the present."

"It's gonna be hard for people to see me as a hero with the words 'convicted felon' plastered across every legal document I own." Gary stares at the floor, blinking back tears. "And honestly, maybe I'm just not cut out to be a hero. That's... sort of why I started getting myself into trouble, I guess. Really, since I was a kid, everyone has seen me as too clumsy, too overeager, too... just too _much,_ I guess."

"Prove 'em wrong. I know you can," Avocato says, corner of his mouth quirking upward in a half-smile. "'Cause- shit, man, I've known you for less than a week now and already I see you as the guy who's determined to help his friends, save people's lives, and risk his own for the safety of his team. Sounds like a hero to me." 

No one has ever shown this much faith in Gary- not since his dad. It is a feeling almost foreign to him, and he decides he could get used to it. "Thanks, Avocato," he says. "You really know how to make a man feel less like crap." 

"Oh, I'm not done yet, baby," says Avocato, smirking. He slides out of the booth and nods in the direction of the cell block. "C'mon. There's a few hours left till daybreak." 

Frozen, Gary watches as Avocato starts down the hall. _Is... is he trying to seduce me?_ "Avocato," he says, "I'm flattered, man, but I'm really Steak-N-Shake dinner and a John Hughes drive-in movie first kinda guy." 

Turning on his heel, Avocato throws him an incredulous look. "Gary," he begins calmly, voice steady in the most intimidating way (much like a mother on the verge of a psychotic break in the middle of a superstore), "I meant you need to get some _sleep."_

"Oh, right. Yeah. That's... that's good too." He follows Avocato to his cell, and before he can say goodnight and close the door, Avocato saunters into the room and flops onto the far side of the bed, patting the space next to him.

Gary stares, baffled. "I-I was under the impression," he starts, "that you had your own room?"

"I do." Avocato smiles. "But don't you think you'd have better luck sleeping if you had someone to keep the bad dreams at bay?" 

Mooncake, who has eagerly snuggled into the crook of Avocato's neck, nods vigorously in agreement. Gary figures he can't argue with logic like that. So he climbs back into his bed, slips under the covers and almost cries, because _God,_ the feeling of Avocato's body wrapped protectively around his frame makes him feel indescribably safe. Their hands find each other under the covers and, after a few awkward fails, interlock to fit perfectly. 

"Thank you," Gary manages to say, the words choked with tears. 

He can feel Avocato smile against his back. "Hey," he says warmly, "anything for a hero."

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank not only Olan, but also the fandom (and quite possibly God) for motivating me to write this. I haven't published on here in, like, half a year, so I'm overjoyed to have been able to finally complete a work. Hope you enjoyed :)


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